Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Photo: Michael Maloney

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Stacy Hegler helps wrap the dressing covering the gunshot wound in her son Melvin McHenry's arm.
Melvin McHenry is a 16 year old Oakland kid who was shot on 59th and Shattuck recently. His mother, Stacy Hegler said her son is not drug dealer as the shooter Patrick McCullough claims and was merely acting in self defense. She thinks that Patrick McCullough should be prosecuted "for shooting my son." So far, the Oakland cops back McCullough. Photo by Michael Maloney / San Francisco Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

MCCULLOUGH01_040_MJM.jpg
Stacy Hegler helps wrap the dressing covering the gunshot wound in her son Melvin McHenry's arm.
Melvin McHenry is a 16 year old Oakland kid who was shot on 59th and Shattuck ... more

The 16-year-old Oakland boy who was shot and wounded by a neighbor who for years has crusaded against drug dealers said Monday the man started the fight over nothing.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to file charges against Patrick McCullough, the 49-year-old man who shot the teen -- or Melvin McHenry and a group of friends who allegedly attacked McCullough in his front yard before the shooting.

In a sign of continuing tensions in the 500 block of 59th Street, police responded Monday to a report that two men were threatening McCullough as he stood in his living room. The two men saw McCullough through his window about 4:30 p.m. and made a hand gesture of firing a handgun at him, police and McCullough said.

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McCullough wounded Melvin during a Feb 18 confrontation in front of the man's home near a well-known drug-dealing spot at 59th Street and Shattuck Avenue.

McCullough, who has reported suspected drug dealers to police for 10 years, said he fired in self-defense while standing in his front yard after Melvin and his friends surrounded him, yelled "there's the snitch," and hit him. He said he fired only because he heard Melvin call out for a pistol and then reach into a friend's waistband to pull out a gun.

But Melvin, who spoke to The Chronicle after his mother contacted the newspaper, gave a very different account -- saying McCullough started the confrontation by yelling at a group of teens and starting a fight.

"I wasn't doing anything," the 16-year-old said, as he and his mother showed the wounds on his arm and back to a reporter. "I was running away when he shot me. He really shot me over nothing."

Melvin, a junior at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, said he was walking by with a group of eight or nine friends when McCullough began yelling "get away from my house." Melvin said he and his friends yelled back, referring to McCullough as "the snitch."

"He came out and grabbed me so I hit him," Melvin said. "I was just going on my way. I saw the gun and started to run and he shot me. I kept running. I thought he was going to kill me."

Melvin, whose family moved to the block about a year ago, said the incident was his first encounter with McCullough, who lives across the street and several houses down.

"This man is crazy and dangerous," said Melvin's mother, Stacy Hegler, whose nephew, Terrance Hegler, 22, was a homicide victim in East Oakland in December. "He tried to kill my son for no reason, and if they don't put him in jail he's going to kill someone else's son."

She also insisted that her son has no police record and is not a drug dealer.

McCullough was arrested that night on suspicion of assault and released several hours later on $15,000 bail. The Alameda County district attorney initially declined to file charges in the case and asked police to investigate further.

Hegler is urging prosecutors to charge McCullough, but police who patrol North Oakland disagree. They have known McCullough for years and consider him to be a good man in an area where drug dealers from the North Pole gang have run the block and nearby Bushrod Park.

"In our opinion, her son was the aggressor -- he instigated the whole event," said Lt. Lawrence Green, who oversees patrols in North Oakland.

Green feels prosecutors should charge Melvin and his friends for assault. He dismissed Hegler's assertion that McCullough was the instigator.

About 20 members of community groups in Oakland and South Berkeley have written letters or e-mails urging prosecutors not to charge McCullough.

McCullough spent Monday trying to obtain a restraining order against Melvin and Hegler and applied for a concealed weapons permit. He also dismissed Hegler's criticism of him.

"I'm trying my best to ignore her," said McCullough, who works as a radio technician. "She is just saying my poor baby is being persecuted. They say I'm harassing him. Where did this take place? It took place in my yard in front of my house. There are a lot of enablers and folks in denial out there."